Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Chairboy on August 15, 2006, 09:00:25 PM
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http://www.wyff4.com/education/9680361/detail.html
Out of 490 female students, 65 pregnant. Until now, the school's sex ed was a pure abstinence platform.
Perhaps ideals are not, in fact, the same as reality.
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an ideal is some thing to strive for, realty is what happens.
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Is there a comparison to a school with similar demographics that provided sex ed to students?
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5- Flamebaiting, trolling, or posting to incite or annoy is not allowed.
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I saw no where in that article what their up until now "platform" was. One of abstinence was implied with this statement "He said the new curriculum moves beyond the "Just Say No" approach." but a previously policy of abstinece only being taught was not stated. Forgive me if I don't trust the media.
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Hi Chairboy,
Yup, prior to the invention of the condom every teenage girl became pregnant out of wedlock. You know, those were the embarrassing chapters they left out of "Little House on the Prairie" and "Anne of Green Gables" where the girls get pregnant at school. ;)
Seriously, clearly it is not absolutely inevitable that our children have to have sex in high-school and that all we can do is hand them a condom. The very fact that this was not the norm in the USA prior to the 1960s should prove that. The problem with abstinence messages in modern society though, is that the social and religious pressure that made abstinence a reality in the past, no longer exists. In fact, we have a culture that does exactly the opposite and presses kids towards sex as soon as possible and stygmatizes chastity. How on earth do we expect a "just say no" message to resonate when the society is screaming "JUST DO IT!" and they have no moral and ethical reason for saying no. Expecting a teen to be scared away from sex by the current horrendous STD statistics alone is just not going to do it any more than the cancer warning on the pack of cigarettes is going to eliminate teen age smoking.
- SEAGOON
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I think those 65 would have spread their legs enough times to get knocked up regardless what they sleep through during sex ed class ...
sounds like they could hold a class or two about the subject themselves ...
they failed the class right? .. what part about sex = babies, no sex = no babies did they not understand?
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Originally posted by Seagoon
social and religious pressure that made abstinence a reality in the past, no longer exists.
That pretty much sums it up...
I think abstinence should be encouraged along with teaching kids how to use a condom...
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Originally posted by soda72
That pretty much sums it up...
I think abstinence should be encouraged along with teaching kids how to use a condom...
From "They're all dirty sluts" to "blame society" to, my personal favorite, "The children failed us", I was really beginning to despair. Thanks soda, first good sensible reply yet.
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Originally posted by soda72
I think abstinence should be encouraged along with teaching kids how to use a condom...
Bingo.
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Every father should escort their daughters on dates carrying a shotgun. It would be more effective than any of this.
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Are you seriously suggesting that teenagers do NOT know how to use a condom?
They don't want to use them. For the guys there's a macho thing about not using a condom. I've been dealing with them for nearly 30 years, and that attitude is very prevalent, in all demographic groups, but especially in those of lower socio-economic status.
"It's like taking a shower with a raincoat on."
According to the National Prevention Information Network...the United States has the worst rates of STD infection of any nation in the western world...between 50 to 100 times as high as other nations.
Reasons listed for this high rate are: Teenagers are having sex at much earlier ages, higher rates of divorce, and sexually active people are more likely to have multiple sexual partners.
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Originally posted by Mini D
Every father should escort their daughters on dates carrying a shotgun. It would be more effective than any of this.
Unfortunately, we're dealing with more and more single parent families. Kids are being left alone more now than ever.
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The death of the American family.
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Originally posted by Mini D
The death of the American family.
The American family became deathly ill when Mom went to work and left the kids at home alone.
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Well, with the quality of our sexual education classes, I learned about 50x more reading WikiPedia articles for a couple of hours wasting time during Digital Design class.
I am one of the few guys (apparently) who is taking abstinence seriously, and if I did break it, I would use a condom. However, I had no idea how to use one until I looked it up on WikiPedia. The ONLY things that were said (over and over again) in our sex ed classes so far were "don't have sex" in seventh grade, then "use protection" in 8th grade. We heard about AIDS a couple thousand times. I think one girl in a video had crabs. No other STDs were discussed. For the seperated sexually classes (the stuff about your dick and such) we learned nearly nothing about the female body. Apparently the girls didn't learn much about the males either. Nothing about either gender was discussed in the non-seperated classes.
I, for one, am hoping that the requisite Biology and Health classes next year fill in the gaps for the people who aren't WikiNerds. Nobody knows what the hell is going on.
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Originally posted by Sandman
The American family became deathly ill when Mom went to work and left the kids at home alone.
Or when it became profitable to get a divorce or when children would get in the way of a career. How about when a single mom once again fails to land a husband by getting pregnant and then teaches here 5 daughters that's the way it's done. Hell... let's not even get extreme and go to the creation of the "time out" and ridolyn.
I see alot of parents doing good jobs with their kids and don't mean to imply that a majority of the families out there are trash. That's not the case. What is the case, though, is a growing number of completely disfunctional families and disfunction support structures.
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MiniD, I don't necessarily disagree, but I wonder if the level of disfunction has increased per capita.
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Originally posted by Seagoon
Expecting a teen to be scared away from sex by the current horrendous STD statistics alone is just not going to do it any more than the cancer warning on the pack of cigarettes is going to eliminate teen age smoking.
- SEAGOON
Regarding stats:
(http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/images/trends-gon-rates.gif)
(http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/images/trends-syph-rates.gif)
source (http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/trends2004.htm)
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3 Things
1) The American Family didnt just die...its been goin down the toilet ever since WWI..im sure everyone knew that though
2) If I was shown what various STDs(pictures, real-life anecdotes) actually do to your PP...I would have been too damn scared to have unprotected sex. :D Thats just me. Enough of the timid PC business about sex. If a kid can see a decapitation on film with parents permission, it should be the same way with something more prevalent and personal.
3) Are those graphs depicting untreated cases, or treated and untreated cases combined because the former would explain the decline(antibiotics).
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Wow...looking at Sandy's charts...it's easy to see where the sexual revolution began.
Years ago I read an article about the spread of STDs which stated that the rates of infection were infinitesimal prior to the Second World War compared to what they became after the discovery of penicillin.
There was so much confidence in penicillin's ability to handle almost any infection that people began to grow more promiscuous and careless. One result was a peak in the rate of STD infection during the Second World War.
My dad says he can remember seeing lines of American servicemen in front of cat houses overseas that stretched around the block.
The trend is also visible in Sandman's first chart.
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I'M ONLY 13!!! I'M ONLY 13!!!
:rolleyes:
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I love the whole idea of blaming the school for these kids being stupid little horndogs, and giving the parents a free pass.
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Originally posted by Sandman
MiniD, I don't necessarily disagree, but I wonder if the level of disfunction has increased per capita.
Yeah, I think it has. As divorce goes up. As game console sales go up. As intramural activities decline. The "that's OK" and "it's not your fault... it's the system" or "you have to look out for #1" consolation that accompanies it goes a long way to help.
The more I hear "the education system needs to protect your children" the more I think the country is completely losing it's mind.
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So let me get this straight.... Are they saying that without public school teachers no kid would ever know about birth control methods? They wouldn't know how to put on a condom?
How old were these kids anyway?
I don't blame teachers for pregnant kids but... I do blame em for kids who can't read and write. I blame em for kids being dumber every decade.
lazs
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Lasz,
One of the problems with public schools in the U.S. is that they have become the testing grounds for every experiment in social engineering to come down the pike since the start of the 1960s.
Every minute devoted to such trendy trends is a minute subtracted from the time that is devoted to pure academic achievement.
Even worse has been the abandonment of rote memorization, phonics, and other tried-and-true traditional methods of instruction for light-weight, feather-brained, new-age methodologies. Each succeeding generation of students brought up under these new fads finds it increasingly difficult to excel.
If it seems I'm digressing from the main topic, I apologize. I'm not, so bear with me.
The concensus of opinion of many in this thread is that it is the responsibility of the parents to educate their children about sex. I agree totally. Yet many parents have fobbed that task off on the public schools and conveniently washed their hands of any personal responsibility in this matter.
I feel the same way about the education of my children. The main responsibility for educating my children does not lie with the public schools. It lies with me. If I am unsatisfied with the way the schools are educating my sons then I am obligated to find a viable alternative, if one exists.
When my youngest son entered the first grade the wife and I pulled him OUT of the public school in which I worked because we did not like the makeup of the class in which he would be placed. I knew each and every child that would be in that class and their families and many of them were disruptive little dickenses.
So out he came. It peaced off my superintendent, but according to state law, there was nothing he could do about it. We kept my son out for as long as it took for us to home educate him to the point where we thought he was well-grounded in the basics and could function regardless of the distractions around him. Then we sent him back.
Our children are OUR responsibilities...whether we are discussing pure academics or sex education or whatever.
Regards, Shuckins
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well... I am just saying... kids at 12 seem to know everything about every kind of shoe or ipod or xbox or drug or whatever... It seems odd that they would be clueless about birth control.
lazs
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Originally posted by Shuckins
Are you seriously suggesting that teenagers do NOT know how to use a condom?
They don't want to use them. For the guys there's a macho thing about not using a condom. I've been dealing with them for nearly 30 years, and that attitude is very prevalent, in all demographic groups, but especially in those of lower socio-economic status.
"It's like taking a shower with a raincoat on."
bingo
back in my early 20's i actually had a diffucult time performing with a constricting, uncomfortable, numbing, painful to remove thing on my wang.
and yes painful to take off hair
nothing like making sex a unpleasant thing to make you question whether
it's worth the hassle when a girl insists on one.
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Hi Sandy,
Originally posted by Sandman
Regarding stats:
I noticed that the stats you posted were for the "older" more treatable and less rampant STDs, not the current batch of untreatable STDs which, for instance, at least 1 in 5 college students will graduate with.
Here's an article on the spread of the new crop:
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Little progress in stemming STDs
As major diseases continue to spread, other microbes emerge
By Jacqueline Stenson
Contributing editor
MSNBC
Updated: 5:43 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2005
Despite all the safe sex messages, there has been little progress in stemming the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the United States.
STDs like chlamydia and herpes are more common than ever, and doctors are now starting to see a couple of new or previously unrecognized infections.
"The overwhelming concern is that STDs continue to be epidemic and that some of the infections are increasing," says Julius Schachter, editor of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases and a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
There are an estimated 19 million new cases of STDs each year in the United States, up from 15 million nearly a decade ago. Experts don't have exact numbers because not all diseases are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and many people don't know they're infected.
Among the most shocking estimates are that one in five Americans has genital herpes and more than half of women will contract HPV, or human papillomavirus, which causes genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer. At least a million Americans are living with the deadly AIDS virus.
Rest of the Story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9504789/
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Originally posted by Seagoon
Hi Sandy,
I noticed that the stats you posted were for the "older" more treatable and less rampant STDs, not the current batch of untreatable STDs which, for instance, at least 1 in 5 college students will graduate with.
According to the CDC, this document summarizes 2004 national data on trends in notifiable STDs.
I didn't post the Chlamydia chart because it didn't indicate any historic data. They did say that cases increased 5.9% from 2003 to 2004. There was no information on Herpes.
I briefly looked at some of the other stats http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/ and this appears to be the source of MSNBC's information. By the look of things, they don't have as much information on Herpes as the other major STDs.
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From the article you linked Seagoon:
"There are an estimated 19 million new cases of STDs each year in the United States, up from 15 million nearly a decade ago."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9504789/
Everyone likes graphs so here's an expertly drawn one to represent the data. ;)
(http://www.inettek.com/pics/stats.jpg)
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Originally posted by lukster
From the article you linked Seagoon:
"There are an estimated 19 million new cases of STDs each year in the United States, up from 15 million nearly a decade ago."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9504789/
Everyone likes graphs so here's an expertly drawn one to represent the data. ;)
(http://www.inettek.com/pics/stats.jpg)
Unless the increase in population is factored out, the graph isn't worth much. ;)
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Graph this.
The first year that I taught at the small public school where I was to work for 23 years, there were 32 girls enrolled, grades 7-12.
Eight of them already had children. One seventh grader had a child that was already a year old. Four more girls were pregnant before the year was out.
These kids were extremely savvy about sex. They knew how to keep from getting pregnant, but apparently could not be bothered to use protection. Besides, one child equalled at least one government check each month... at least at that particular point in history.
Regards, Shuckins
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Granted. Well, all I have to go by is projected population stats. From here: http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1130/p251130a.pdf it is estimated there was an increase in overall population from 1995 to 2005 of 1.69%. Of course that may not accurately respresent the group experiencing the rise in STDs but it's probably close.
1.69% of 19 million is roughly 320,000. The increase in STDs was 6 million. The increase in population was notan insignificant factor.
ooops
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If we accept the estimate. It doesn't appear to me that the CDC has sufficient data to support MSNBC's estimate.
Whoa... my eyes glazed over that number... the projection is that the population increased in the U.S. by just 320,000 from 1995 to 2005?
According to this (http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab02.txt), the population increased over 32 Million between 1990 and 2000.
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Great graph Lukster. :rofl Sincerely appreciated it.
Anyway Sandy, my only point originally was that you can tell teens that if they choose to be sexually active then they can expect that at least 1 in 5 of them will end up with an STD, and then even point out that those odds are actually worse than the 1 in 6 chance you have playing Russian Roulette and yet it will probably not impact their decision.
In counseling I've found that if the kid has no real ethical/religious convictions regarding pre-marital sex, that they either dismiss the possibility of an STD entirely or blindly assume that they will be one of the other 4 individuals who dodges the bullet. Of course none of this addresses the long term emotional damage done to young females in particular. As one female counselor down here pointed out to a distraught girl she was counseling, "Honey, when are you going to realize there's no such thing as a contraceptive to protect your heart?" Fathers used to understand that and worked hard to protect their daughters from the scads of young cads who come sniffing around. A few still do, I wish there were more.
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Originally posted by Seagoon
Great graph Lukster. :rofl Sincerely appreciated it.
Anyway Sandy, my only point originally was that you can tell teens that if they choose to be sexually active then they can expect that at least 1 in 5 of them will end up with an STD, and then even point out that those odds are actually worse than the 1 in 6 chance you have playing Russian Roulette and yet it will probably not impact their decision.
I agree completely. Ya know... when I was in the Navy and we stopped at Mombasa Kenya back in 1988 we were told that there was a 50% chance of catching HIV and yet there were still guys playing those odds.
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Originally posted by Sandman
If we accept the estimate. It doesn't appear to me that the CDC has sufficient data to support MSNBC's estimate.
Whoa... my eyes glazed over that number... the projection is that the population increased in the U.S. by just 320,000 from 1995 to 2005?
According to this (http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab02.txt), the population increased over 32 Million between 1990 and 2000.
The 320,000 is 1.69% of the 19 million with STDs, not the entire population.
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So... is a 1.69% increase considered horrendous?
Or am I misreading the numbers?
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Originally posted by Sandman
So... is a 1.69% increase considered horrendous?
It is if you've got an agenda. :D
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Originally posted by Sandman
So... is a 1.69% increase considered horrendous?
Or am I misreading the numbers?
I may have misled you in my earlier post, I left out the word "not". The population increase no more accounts for the increase in STDs than this school's hint that preaching abstinence is to be blamed for the rise in pregnancies.
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Originally posted by Chairboy
It is if you've got an agenda. :D
Only one I'm accusing of an agenda is the school adminsitrator and it's not what I think you think. The school is feeling pressure and they're trying to pass the buck.
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Now I'm completely confused about the 1.69% figure.
According to your link (http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1130/p251130a.pdf) the change in population from 1995 to 2005 is estimated at over 23 million.
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Originally posted by Sandman
Now I'm completely confused about the 1.69% figure.
According to your link (http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1130/p251130a.pdf) the change in population from 1995 to 2005 is estimated at over 23 million.
You're just messin' with me right?
Here's the chart I used. I just added the percentages from 1995-2000 and 2000-2005 using the middle series.
(http://www.inettek.com/pics/stats2.jpg)
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I did it too quicky, I see my error. Those are annual changes. I'll redo the numbers.
Ok, the number I have is an 8.45% increase in population from 1995-2005. The increase in STDs during that period was approx 30%. Therefore the increase in population does not account for the increase in STDs.
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I guess I could mention that both parents work now and work longer hours. Not to mention weaker unions and less pay. But I guess our economy would not keep up with China otherwise.
Remember when we were in grade school, when we were told that in the future we would work less hours and shorter work weeks? What a pipe dream that was huh?
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Originally posted by lukster
The increase in STDs during that period was approx 30%.
Source?
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Originally posted by Sandman
Source?
Well, slightly less than 30%. Source? Didn't you see my chart? ;)
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Seriously though. The current number of 19 million can be found at the site ASHA. I don't know where article got the 15 million number from. However, I did find an interesting presentation from the 2006 state of STD conference at the CDC site. It's a power point presentation so I captured one slide: http://cdc.confex.com/cdc/std2006/techprogram/P12071.HTM
(http://www.inettek.com/pics/stats3.jpg)
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Thanks, btw, having that huge slide of STDs up on my screen here at work really helped establish my image here. Many thanks.
:D
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Originally posted by Chairboy
Thanks, btw, having that huge slide of STDs up on my screen here at work really helped establish my image here. Many thanks.
:D
Glad to help keep you abstinent. ;)
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Originally posted by lukster
Seriously though. The current number of 19 million can be found at the site ASHA. I don't know where article got the 15 million number from. However, I did find an interesting presentation from the 2006 state of STD conference at the CDC site. It's a power point presentation so I captured one slide: http://cdc.confex.com/cdc/std2006/techprogram/P12071.HTM
I follow... a 13+% population increase but a 30% increase in STD rate.
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Originally posted by Sandman
I follow... a 13+% population increase but a 30% increase in STD rate.
Actually, the slide I copied from the CDC Conference covered a period of only five years so cut the population increase in half and reduce the 30% by 3-4 points.
Bottom line seems to be that whatever we're doing to prevent this isn't working.
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Originally posted by Seagoon
Hi Chairboy,
Yup, prior to the invention of the condom every teenage girl became pregnant out of wedlock. You know, those were the embarrassing chapters they left out of "Little House on the Prairie" and "Anne of Green Gables" where the girls get pregnant at school. ;)
Seriously, clearly it is not absolutely inevitable that our children have to have sex in high-school and that all we can do is hand them a condom. The very fact that this was not the norm in the USA prior to the 1960s should prove that. The problem with abstinence messages in modern society though, is that the social and religious pressure that made abstinence a reality in the past, no longer exists. In fact, we have a culture that does exactly the opposite and presses kids towards sex as soon as possible and stygmatizes chastity. How on earth do we expect a "just say no" message to resonate when the society is screaming "JUST DO IT!" and they have no moral and ethical reason for saying no. Expecting a teen to be scared away from sex by the current horrendous STD statistics alone is just not going to do it any more than the cancer warning on the pack of cigarettes is going to eliminate teen age smoking.
- SEAGOON
:aok
hap
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Originally posted by Seagoon
Hi Chairboy,
Yup, prior to the invention of the condom every teenage girl became pregnant out of wedlock. You know, those were the embarrassing chapters they left out of "Little House on the Prairie" and "Anne of Green Gables" where the girls get pregnant at school. ;)
Seriously, clearly it is not absolutely inevitable that our children have to have sex in high-school and that all we can do is hand them a condom. The very fact that this was not the norm in the USA prior to the 1960s should prove that. The problem with abstinence messages in modern society though, is that the social and religious pressure that made abstinence a reality in the past, no longer exists. In fact, we have a culture that does exactly the opposite and presses kids towards sex as soon as possible and stygmatizes chastity. How on earth do we expect a "just say no" message to resonate when the society is screaming "JUST DO IT!" and they have no moral and ethical reason for saying no. Expecting a teen to be scared away from sex by the current horrendous STD statistics alone is just not going to do it any more than the cancer warning on the pack of cigarettes is going to eliminate teen age smoking.
- SEAGOON
My parents grew up in small town, family first, God-fearing, conservative South Dakota.
My mom's graduating class was 13 kids. Of those 13, split 7 boys and 6 girls, 3 of the girls got pregnant. This was mid 1950s. (Mom wasn't one of the pregnant ones)
I don't think things are any different today. Hormones are a dangerous thing :)
As for the 'disintigration' of the family. It's all about how mom and dad do the job. My wife and I both work, and since we had kids, 22 years ago, we've worked opposite shifts to keep them out of day care and to make sure one of us was always available. It's our job to do the parenting in our opinion. If you put the effort in, the kids will listen and talk to you.. They'll still test the waters, as we all did as kids. That's also part of being a teenager. And you can't protect them from everything as much as I wish we could.
It's still all about personal responsibility. It's not the school's job to raise my kids.
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Results of the U. Penn. study of abstinence based programs...
Teaching abstinence reduces teen sex
Study: Condom use not affected
Sharon Kirkey, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, August 15, 2006
TORONTO - Abstinence-only programs can reduce sexual activity among young teens and effectively delay their "sexual debut" without discouraging future condom use, according to a new study of the controversial HIV prevention strategy.
A study of 662 African-American Grade 6 and 7 students from inner-city middle schools in Philadelphia found those taught an abstinence-only approach to sex were less likely to have had sexual intercourse at 24 months' follow-up compared to those put through a "safer sex" intervention that emphasized condom use but made no mention of abstinence.
And while Bill Clinton, the former U.S. president, told delegates to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto yesterday that abstinence programs delay sexual activity but make teens less likely to use condoms when they do start having sex, the study found the opposite to be true.
"It did not reduce intentions to use condoms, it did not reduce beliefs about the efficacy of condoms, it did not decrease consistent condom use and it did not decrease condom use at last sexual [encounter]," lead author John Jemmott, of the University of Pennsylvania, said.
The youngsters in the study ranged in age from 10 to 15; half were girls. Twenty-three per cent said they had had sexual intercourse at least once before the study began.
"There aren't any studies that show that children are less likely to use condoms as a result of an abstinence intervention. I've looked in the literature, there are no studies that show that," Mr. Jemmott said in an interview.
"But you have to be concerned about it, because many abstinence-only until marriage programs give misinformation about condoms and present the failure rates in a way that would discourage people from using them."
At the massive AIDS meeting being held here this week, abstinence-only programs are about as popular as Alcoholics Anonymous at a brewery. Planned Parenthood has called the approach "one of the religious right's greatest challenge to the nation's sexual health." In the United States, federally funded abstinence programs have been found to push distorted and inaccurate information about sexual health, homosexuality and abortion.
But Mr. Jemmott said not all abstinence interventions can be lumped together "and thrown away," and there is no logical reason that an abstinence intervention cannot be effective.
The abstinence intervention in his study promoted abstinence from vaginal, anal and oral sex until a later time in life when youth would be able to handle the consequences of a sexual relationship.
Researchers removed all mention of condoms, other than telling facilitators not to say anything negative about them. The team involved a researcher from the University of Waterloo.
The youth were followed for two years. Through role-playing, videos and video clips and group discussions, "We changed the intention to have sex," Mr. Jemmott said. It also delayed the sexual debut of youth who were virgins when the study began.
"We caused them to have more positive attitudes towards abstinence and the negative consequences of engaging in sexual activity at an early age, including less likely to achieve one's career goals."
© National Post 2006
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Originally posted by DiabloTX
Unfortunately, we're dealing with more and more single parent families. Kids are being left alone more now than ever.
Many thanks to LBJs "War on Paverty"